


bleed

by Ghostmonument



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Introspection, POV Second Person, Self-Loathing, We Die Like Men, formatting will literally be the death of me im calling it now, im not putting the master as a character bc, no caps, post-s12 I guess? idk it was a choice and maybe not the right one huh, thasmin if you narrow your eyes, thoschei if you squint, watch the author flounder for 3000 words, well whatever you'll see
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:34:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24935347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghostmonument/pseuds/Ghostmonument
Summary: The Doctor's been running from a certain question for too long. The waiting's always been worse than the running, but they are intertwined and she can't escape either.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor & Yasmin Khan & Graham O'Brien & Ryan Sinclair, Thirteenth Doctor/The Doctor's TARDIS
Comments: 9
Kudos: 29
Collections: DW Creators Writing Style Swap





	bleed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [silent_h](https://archiveofourown.org/users/silent_h/gifts).



it is ironic, you think, that your life hinges around running, and around waiting. diametrically opposed, these two celestial spheres locked in endless orbit through the millennia of you. you favor the running though it does not favor you, not any more than the waiting — but you can tip the balance, sometimes. with a different sphere, one temperamental and as like to cleave to one extreme as the other, transient, mercurial, and as ancient as you.

it’s the questions that hold the history of you together, you think. running you’re good at, and at waiting you’re rubbish. but the _questions_ can go either way, and often both.

rarely neither.

you appreciate the shifting nature of the questions (except the times when you don’t) because they prevent stagnation, as a general rule. you hate stagnation almost as much as you hate rules (and you have _so_ many rules).

you think that your affinity for these questions is what draws you to the humans, the ones you envelope into your life, anyway. certainly the questions are at least a part of why you keep them around; their minds work in such fascinating ways, both similar and wildly alien to your own, both so much smaller and so much _more_ crammed into the tiny, brief sparks that encompass their lives.

they burn so brilliantly you almost can’t stand it, watching them burn. almost.

and the questions let you show-off. you can admit that much to yourself, that the spectacle of it allows you to act as a benevolent tour guide, someone who uplifts others from the mundane and ordinary. you like too when the questions uplift _you_. because sometimes these humans take those brief, precious sparks of their life and use them to focus on something you missed, or worse, discarded as unimportant. (they were always important.)

but especially you like their questions because they distract you from your own.

“you always have the answers,” one of them had laughed earlier today (or would laugh, later, it didn’t matter, it didn’t matter), the one that feels like determination and hope and something else, something dangerous when she brushes against your mind. something you’ve felt before, too many times (not enough times). it aches, and it’s dangerous how much you want it. yaz, yaz who burns _so_ bright, so new and kind and forgiving and the ache is so sharp you could cut yourself on the want of it, to let her in and curl around that warmth even as you bleed.

“yes,” you had answered (or would answer), your eyes cutting away from hers. smile, you remind yourself, _smile, she can’t see the blood that fills your mouth, coats your tongue with each sharp stab of want._ you embrace the pain of it, because it’s safer than embracing her. “flat structure aside, it’s about time you lot came up with some answers of your own, i can’t do all the work.”

they had laughed again, all of them, the one that feels so much like a future, and the one that feels like the past, and the one that holds himself just a little back, as if afraid of being burned. ryan —

— ryan is smart, you’ve known that from the first moment you met him. he at least knows the danger of being pulled into something over his head and he alone, perhaps, recognizes the danger of you. more than the others, he reacts to not only your pull, but your push away. part of you is grateful for it. more of you wants to overcome it. your eyes had flickered over them again (would flicker over them, a thousand times, never enough times), and suddenly you couldn’t (you can’t) breathe.

only through the running can you breathe again, moving on always to something else, something new, never letting the questions stop but never letting them linger either, because questions don’t keep the peace between running and waiting — they keep the balance, and that is a _very_ different thing.

you have been trying to outrun a specific question from these bright new friends of yours ever since you met them, and at some point unnoticed the running has turned into waiting. and waiting for a question is so much worse than any other combination in your celestial balance. you run farther, faster, through the extraordinary and terrible and unknown, but the question, that question, it tails your passage like a comet, stretching behind you and looming larger, brighter each time it is left unasked.

you feel your friends _think_ it, sometimes, their eyes on your back as you move around the console, or as they stare into the depths of a space and time long gone (or long to come). it is _there_ , in their silences. in the observations that they keep to themselves. you fancy sometimes that you can even taste it, leaking from their subconscious like blood in the water (and does that make you a shark? a known danger to skirt wide of, to respect but not to trust?)

( but — even sharks don’t _lure_ their prey from the safety of the shallows into the open ocean, don’t say _take my hand, you can swim, you’ll be safe out here, trust me,_ all while their teeth glitter in the light.)

you hate yourself for it, but not as much as you should (and you hate that, too).

you follow that psychic blood trail one day, drawn to it despite (because of) yourself. it’s brighter, more substantial than usual, and it’s not until you reach the console and see them that you realize your friends aren’t just thinking about it, about that question that shadows you all. you stand still in the doorway for a moment, cloaked in shadows and recognizing the irony.

“ — would have loved this,” graham is saying, hands in his pocket.

“i wish she could have,” ryan says.

yaz is silent, but even from your place in the shadows you can see the light catching the shine of her eyes as she looks between the others and radiating sorrow and compassion. your hands clench.

“yeah,” graham says, so softly it almost disguises the catch in his throat. “it doesn’t seem fair, does it? we have all of this now,” and he gestures around him at the tardis, at you lurking unseen in the shadows that hide your flinch, “all this, new planets and aliens and time travel — time travel! — but…” he breaks off, and you close your eyes, because you know what’s coming, you can feel its blinding approach and it’s too late, you can’t stop it —

“but we can’t save her,” ryan finishes. he’s not looking at them, but down at his feet, and you’re glad you can’t see his expression.

they fall silent, and it’s a terrible silence, heavy and mocking and you can feel it staring at you, pressing you into the shadows and you can’t breathe, you can’t breathe and there’s blood in your mouth and you can’t —

you’re suffocating —

you can’t just stand still, you have to swing the balance back, have to run —

“i’m sorry,” you say, not sure the words have actually left your mouth until they turn to you, the three of them, and you feel the weight of their regard crash over your shoulders. you wrench yourself from the shadows and you hope, as you move towards the console, that they can’t see the effort it takes not to stagger. can’t see the blood that you know you’re leaving in your wake.

your hands settle on the controls and you take your first breath in too long. The dials warm in your fingers, and calming affection that isn’t yours courses up your arms from the console. it’s still so silent.

“I’m — sorry,” you repeat, not looking at them. _forgive me,_ you want to say, but don’t. you can’t — won’t — ask them that.

“what? what have you got to be sorry for?” one of them asks, and you would know without hearing that it’s graham by the way his steady compassion laps against your mind, weathered and grown strong by a life full of learning and forgiveness. it scalds you in waves. “the way i see it,” he continues, and from the suddenly fuzzy sound of his voice you know he has just taken a contemplative bite of something (hopefully) edible, likely pulled from a pocket and certainly containing at least one piece of lint, “if this — if she— if it was a real option, you wouldn’t be here. not like this.”

you blink, startled. you hadn’t been expecting this, hadn’t been expecting such frank acceptance. you lift your head and look at them, while a hand curls around a lever. you rock it back and forth, counting the repetitions in your head, letting the cool clack of the metal ground you.

_calm-wait-listen_

the emotions radiate through the lever and you swallow, trying to take your ship’s advice.

“we haven’t been here too long doc,” Graham continues in the face of your silence, and you don’t think any of them are aware of the way that word, that casual _doc,_ is steeped in such fond trust and companionship as it brushes against your awareness. “but i reckon you would have changed a lot more things, if you could do something like - that.” he falters now, though it’s likely imperceptible to any not in possession of a healthy telepathic sensitivity.he clears his throat. “well, i like to think you would anyway.” empathy, there, shot-through with pain as it is. but that’s how empathy works, you think idly, looking away again. it needs pain to grow, and isn’t that itself just another form of cruelty?

the soft laughter that slides through your head isn’t your own. you hope. your knuckles flare white on the lever you still clutch like the anchor it is.

“i could,” you say into the fresh silence. still not looking at them. it’s rarely an issue of _could,_ surely they understand that by now, these fast, blazing, ephemeral creatures. you feel the scorching regard of one of them pass over you like an eclipse; when you lift your eyes, ryan is watching your white knuckled grip while the console’s lights glimmer in his dark, solemn gaze. you let go as if burned, stuffing your clenching and unclenching fist into a pocket. your hands are safe there, can’t be used to hurt, to interfere, to ruin. you don’t see the white crescent moons that your nails leave in your palm like a brand.

your throat burns; they’re all of them still looking at you, _to_ you, radiating compassion and trust and concern so exquisitely painful that it tastes like blood on your tongue, in your lungs —

laughter slithers again through your head, soft and wild and knowing. the tardis lights flicker.

“i could,” you repeat, not sure why, not sure why the way their faces tighten in confusion and unease fills you with vindication. (a monster, do they see it? do they know the danger finally? _don’t trust me, not too much, not too close_ , hope is a four-letter word you use to hook them every time and you hate it and do it anyway—)

“why not then?” graham asks, and you close your eyes at the soft whisper of it, at the fractures that shiver in the syllables, though not his face. “doc, _why?”_

questions, questions, always it comes back to questions. you’ve done this dance so many times your feet bleed when the music comes on, and always you come back to it, a trail of repeated pain throughout history. at least you’re not waiting anymore, you think, tasting blood.

“some things are fixed in time,” you say, knowing they won’t understand, knowing they’ll pretend to for a while anyway, anything to keep you close, and talking, and distracting them from what lurks outside the false bubble of your light. you suddenly regret this conversation, regret leading them through this doorway. exhaustion seeps through you, familiar and unwelcome, and you shake your head. “crossing your own time-stream is foolish at _best_ , and it never works out for the best.”

“what if— “

“think of time ripping itself to shreds and collapsing inward,” you interrupt. you remember a different time, with a different girl and a church and her simple love for her father that burned bright enough to end the world. and how when she looked at you, you lit the match. you jerk your head, banishing the memory. too kind, you always hurt them more when you are too kind.

(the laugher coils around your heart, and you want to cling to it, embrace it, but you can’t, you can’t, you made a promise.)

“it would be worse that way. trust me,” you say instead, your words shattering a tense and ugly silence of your own making.

“we do,” yaz speaks for the first time, and she’s making a real effort to keep her voice firm, and steady, and not anything like what she’s actually feeling. she wasn’t as good at that, when you first met.

“that’s what I was saying,” graham adds gruffly. your eyes slide to ryan, and he nods, perhaps not trusting his voice to match his words. smart; you understand that impulse even if you usually go the other way with it, trusting that if you use enough words you’ll distract from whatever truth you’re currently hiding.

what truth are you hiding now?

you don’t know. there’s always something and you’ve long lost count.

they’re all still looking so uncertain and sad, and if that’s what part of you wanted, to see that doubt, to see them face some small sliver of reality… part of you is ashamed. what should you do here? there has to be _something_ you can do, some balance to find between letting them be happy and letting them be safe.

“i’m sorry,” you say again, forcing yourself to meet their eyes as you say it, even though all you want to do it slide away, distract them and yourself with chatter and new adventures, new, things that are better new, before they can tarnish and twist and war, before you can ruin them —

“there’s nothing to forgive,” graham says, and he’s more successful this time, his words almost match his tone.

but they don’t know that, do they? _you_ don’t know that, don’t know who you are anymore, not completely. who you’ve been.

it’s all interwoven, the pasts you don’t remember and the pasts you do, and even the person you are now. they’re all _true,_ and that of course is what really scares you. there exist truths you can’t even run from _because you don’t remember them._ how many more threats are out there because of your recklessness?

unbidden, the answers to the unspoken swirl through your head, clear and sharp.

‘not your fault,’ yaz would whisper. so soft and gentle it would hurt, it hurt, _it hurt_. just thethought of it, that unbearable gentleness, you can’t stand it—

‘can’t blame yourself for something you don’t remember,’ ryan would reason, giving you that out, shouldering your mistakes in the process on shoulders already so burdened, with eyes so old for one so young and it is partially your fault, it’s your fault, it—

‘worrying about it won’t achieve much doc,’ graham would advise, and he’d be so painfully respectful about it all, not pushing you to accept the support he wants so desperately to offer, and you can’t even give him that. he doesn’t deserve your burdens, and you don’t deserve his compassion.

and then there is another voice, of course there is —

‘embrace the uncertainty and become what you always should have,’ _he_ would hiss, oh, and it would be the broken longing in his voice that would strike you the most. that violent contempt, contempt that knows you, and that at least you could curl around that and let it warm you (let it burn you)

(is there a difference? not for you. not for you.)

‘become death, become me,’ he had begged, the madness and pain and fear, yes _fear_ glittering in the depths of his ancient gaze. koschei, your koschei —

you think sometimes that you might live endlessly in that moment, like fingers digging into that bruise again and again, _do it_ , for him you almost could have done it —

no don’t think about that. don’t think about —

about —

don’t think about _him_ —

(burned, you see? burned, burned, and you’d seek it again and again, a moth to the flame, seeking an answer too big for a question too late too late — )

don’t think about it don’t think about him, they’ll know and you’re losing them, they’ll know you’re breaking (broken) and they’ll leave, they always leave, even —

_calm-love-sorrow-steady_

you gasp in a second breath. and then —

“what?”you ask, because you realize that one of them had asked you a question. questions, always the questions. safer ones, now. they don’t leak like blood from a wound, don’t burn in tired eyes. you turn away and run your hands over the console, as if the act might keep them from noticing your lapse in attention.

_amusement-denial-affection_

_quiet_

“i asked where we’re going next,” ryan says, and if he’s had to make an effort to sound light and unconcerned, you don’t hold it against him. how could you?

“yeah,” yaz says, straightening up. “it’s my turn to choose, yeah?”

 _smile_ , you remind yourself as she looks at you, the warmth of her regard bringing feeling back to the tips of your clenched fingers. you relax them slowly. “right,” you say, shaking out your sleeves, hoping they don’t notice those white crescents on your palms. “you remember the rule?”

“it has to be amazing,” yaz answers automatically, with such determination to be right, to make you proud that you feel it as a blow.

 _smile,_ you think, while the taste of copper and iron and salt settles against your teeth. you don’t see the light that glitters off them as you turn to the others, still smiling.

**Author's Note:**

> WOW this was written for the dw creator's discord style swap and holy hell it was so much harder than I thought it would be. I have attempted to emulate the literary style of the INCREDIBLE silent_h and to describe that process as humbling doesn't even begin to cover it. Believe it or not this is my attempt to be less atmospheric and descriptive. yeah. LOL. my clown makeup might as well be tattooed on at this point huh.
> 
> It was SUCH a good exercise though and even though I don't think I was successful I do feel like I really stretched some writing muscles that I don't normally use. oh yeah did I mention my terror of writing the doctor in second person? we like our narrative distance over here, thank you VERY much. BOY. This is also super late, I had just about the wildest few weeks of my life. Some good, some bad, all busy. Some of this was written in the aftermath of a concussion. 
> 
> Anyway I have talked ENOUGH thank you for reading, please check out silent_h's stuff bc they are sooooooooooooo good I want to DIE.


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